For Thursday, September 30, came another splendid day when the military parade made New York tingle with marching tunes and the rhythmic tramp of men. Here was something that always quickens the popular pulse. We had seen many like it in this big, thrilling town, but none that surpassed it. The primal impulse coming from the thought: “Here are our defenders; here our men who face death for Fatherland,” has to answer, no doubt, for the cheers that greet the men at arms as they swing marching by. When kingcraft added pomp, glitter and jingle to it and tamed the trumpet to sing a siren song, and patriotism fluttered flags above it rich in color and hung on gold-tipped spears, the magic was complete. Yet this pageant showed us more in one way and less in another. More, in the fact that it showed us thousands of soldiers and armed man o’ warsmen from many alien ships and lands—some time or other our possible enemies, our possible allies—but all keeping step with our own brave men in the name of a pictorial friendship and in the hope of an unbroken peace; above all paying this passing tribute to our city and our country. Less, in that it showed us the stripping off of the gauds and finery of war, bringing more directly home to us that war today will none of these, but must keep the human material of battle in ready fighting trim. Glory was marching in khaki and scorned all gold galloon. Over the same path as the civic procession of Tuesday came Military Glory in its ranked and regimented thousands, giving something of the thought that if called on to take to the trenches or march to the attack by the time it reached Washington’s arch, the men would be ready. Thus it gave two distinct sensations to the hundreds of thousands who watched it, outside the particular thrills that came when some well-remembered or much-admired division of the troopers came tramping grimly by.
Our Irish citizens enjoyed it immensely, for they knew when the “regulars” were passing that it was dotted all over with Irish faces; that it was the army that Andrew Jackson gloried in; that Phil Sheridan, Kearney, Meagher and a hundred other brilliant men of Irish blood and strain had led on fields of death. Was not their own 69th there swinging along as it had swung at any time in fifty years that the country called? It was, and gallantly held its own for drill and trim and soldier bearing. Did they not warm to the thought that the Irish volunteers were marching, men soldiering for the very love of it, and cherishing an olden hope that sometime, somewhere they might be allowed to charge a battery or storm a height for Ireland—Ireland far away, but Ireland ever near to their hearts. And this thought gave friendliness to their hail of the French marines and the French sailors, for the French had been Ireland’s friend as well as America’s in the old troubled times, and many a one lilted under his breath “Oh, the French are on the sea, says the Shan van Vocht” when the Gallic tri-color went dancing past. These thoughts made it seem tolerable that the English were in the line and went so far as to let them give the Germans a cheer or two, and extending various degrees of approval to Italians, Brazilians and Argentines. But the West Point cadets! There, the innate love of the fighting man by the fighting race found intimate appeal. Many the Irish captain, great in the battlefield, had learned the grim trade in that battalion, and now to see how fine and supple yet tense they seemed, how superbly they marched, how arrowlike their alignment, how wonderfully they wheeled or countermarched, and the bands playing through it all. It was a glorious day for all who took part and all who looked on.
The Naval Parade.
Another day on the water came with Friday, October 1, and the weather again was all that could be wished. Early the excursion steamers took on their loads, for the route was long of the Naval Parade. Shorn of the hundreds of tugboats and small craft that had swarmed the water on the Saturday before, it was a powerful and select squadron that turned its prows upstream to escort the Half Moon and the Clermont as far as Newburg, fifty-five miles above New York. The torpedo boats and a couple of the new sub-marines formed the governmental escorting party—the very old and the very new thus touching sides—and then came over one hundred powerful craft in line, decked in vari-colored bunting and with bands playing. It was a splendid sight, as passing the war ships they swept on beyond Manhattan island up the broad, deep stream. Commander Peary on his stout ship, Roosevelt, freshly arrived that morning from the North and his conquest of the Pole, received the tribute of the thousands in the procession. The dark rocky masses of the Palisades, now glowing here and there with autumn foliage, towered on the left, and on the right lay the river towns set amid fields and woods.
Many a flag of Ireland fluttered from the upper works of the great swift steamer “Asbury Park” on which had gathered some nine hundred of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick and the American-Irish Historical Society with their families and friends. Every provision for their comfort had been made, and the occasion rapidly became one of delightful enjoyment under the stimulation of the grand and historic scenery of the noble river, and the glow of friendly courtesy wherever the Irish race foregathers. The pace could not be very fast, for the greatest of the steamers was bound by the speed of the slowest, and these latter were the Half-Moon and the Clermont. All the more could the time of observation of the many points of interest along the river be extended. Dobb’s Ferry, where Washington had headquarters for so long, while his little army watched the English forces then holding New York against the patriots. Sleepy Hollow, Washington Irving’s home and the scene of his romance of The Headless Horseman, were pointed out. Tarrytown, where Major André, the British spy, was arrested, and Tappan, where he was executed, were noted as the line of steamers ploughed through the Tappan Zee where the Hudson broadens almost to a lake, and is four miles wide and twelve miles long, then past the great prison of Sing Sing on the East bank. Presently, the line was passing Stony Point, the promontory of the Hudson near the entrance to the Highlands. And the gallant story was retold of how the Revolutionary soldiers posted in the rude fortress there had succumbed to an attack by the British; how the loss of the fort rankled in the patriots’ breasts, and how, at the dead of night, in mid-July of 1779, mad Anthony Wayne with a devoted band delivered so sudden and overwhelming an assault that the British garrison was slain or captured, and the stars and stripes were sent aloft never since to give way to an alien flag. On then through the Highlands of the Hudson where the mountains slope down to the river on either side. Old river men aboard pointed out Fishkill Mountain, Storm King, Crow’s Nest, Donderberg, Anthony’s Nose, names written in the history of the country and the literature of the river. At West Point was seen perched on the cliffs the quarters of the military academy of the United States, whence so many great soldiers had been graduated and rich in the memory of Ireland’s celebrated sons as well. Across the river was pointed out the road, still winding down to the stream, by which the traitor, Benedict Arnold, fled, taking boat to the English brig of war, when he surely knew that his treason had been discovered in the capture of Major André. Swinging carefully then around the West Point bend in the river, that scene of rare beauty—the straight stretch of ten miles up to Newburg bay—broke upon the view.
WILLIAM TEMPLE EMMET, ESQ.,
Member of the Society, and President of the Society of the Friendly Sons
of St. Patrick in the City of New York.
Meeting of the American Irish Historical Society.
Under the inspiration of these stirring memories, the stimulus of the celebration and the desire of all concerned, a brief but memorable meeting of the American-Irish Historical Society was held on the forward covered deck of the “Asbury Park.” The Vice President of the New York Chapter discussed the events of the day and the week, and the Irish share therein, extending welcome to the members who had come from other states at the Chapter’s call to meet their brethren in this festal trip, and called on President-General, Dr. Francis J. Quinlan, to address the company. The members warmed to the President’s appeal, for he has the happy gifts of enthusiasm and Celtic eloquence. He spoke for the spread of the society and its usefulness in gathering for future generations the story of the Irish race in America, and laying a foundation for a greater communion among its men and women of today. He was followed by Thomas Zanslaur Lee, Secretary General of the Society, who succinctly told of the recent remarkable gains in membership, and gave practical hints for a still greater accession to the Society’s ranks. William Temple Emmet, President of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, made a short speech of sympathy with the aims of the Society, and the proceedings terminated in an interchange of salutations shared by all present.
In Newburg bay the steamers of the fleet were gathering now, hovering and slowly circling about the Half-Moon and the Clermont and their escorts. The ancient town rising on the west bank of the river showed a gala front of flags, while thousands crowded the heights to view the scene upon the bay. The steamer Providence, bearing the officials of the day, had drawn up to the landing, and while they took part in a procession and made speeches appropriate to the occasion, those on the rest of the fleet dined and made merry. Never before, perhaps, had the waters thereabout furnished such a scene as that of the flag-decked fleet going to and fro under the blue sky, framed in the red and gold of autumn on the hills and breaking with screw and paddle the silver of the wide and placid stream. Would that Washington, whose fearless eyes had often gazed in the weary days of the long-drawn war, out over the river there, had caught that vision of young and strong America afloat and rejoicing a century after his passing away! His, however, were the eyes that saw across the mountains, and in the darkest day beheld the sun upon the hills beyond, and it is not for us to say what he did not see.